aDepartment of Community Medicine, Muzaffarnagar Medical College, Muzaffarnagar, India. e-mail: drkmb25@yahoo.com
bDepartment of Community Medicine, SGRD Medical College, Dehradun, India e-mail: s.kishore@gmail.com
cDepartment of Community Medicine, HIMS, Jolly Grant, Dehradun, India. e-mail: jsenwal25@yahoo.com
1Corresponding author
Online published on 14 October, 2011.
Nutritional deficiencies plays important role in the overall health status of adolescents and are different from those of older adults. Nutritional anemia, vitamin- A and vitamin- B deficiencies are widely recognized among children and adolescents. Due to lack of accurate information and proper guidance, adolescents are prone to various nutritional morbidities. We need to study the nutritional problems of adolescents as they face significant health problems and risk related to their healthy development. The study group comprised of 840 adolescents (420 male and 420 female), selected by multistage random sampling technique. Data was collected on a structured and pre-tested questionnaire by interviewing the adolescents and by conducting their thorough clinical examination which was subsequently analyzed by using suitable statistical package. Prevalence of anemia among adolescent boys and girls were found to be 37 4 and 55.5% respectively. Vitamin- B2 deficiency is more prevalent among adolescents (2.5%). Prevalence of vitamin-A deficiency is approximately double among adolescent boys (1.7%) than adolescent girls (0.9%). There is need of further strengthening the existing “package” of services for adolescents under various initiatives and programmes.
Adolescents, nutritional deficiencies, anemia, vitamin-A, vitamin- B
